Pretzel Experiment Results

Gropius and I concluded our pretzel experiment today. I took both out of the freezer this morning and left them in the fridge while we were gone. This evening, we finished preparing them and compared the results. Just to re-cap:

Last weekend, I made half a batch of Martha Stewart's pretzel bites and divided my dough into two parts. One part I cut into little bites and boiled before IQF'ing them (Individual Quick Frozen) and putting them in a Zip-Loc. The other half I cut into bites, IQF'd and froze without boiling them first.



So, I put the pre-boiled bites on a baking sheet, brushed them with egg white, sprinkled some kosher salt on 'em and baked them until golden. The others, I boiled then baked.

Here are the results:

The one on the left is from the boiled/baked this evening batch and the one on the right was boiled before it was frozen. Gropius and I agreed that the boiled/frozen/baked batch definitely had better texture than the frozen/boiled/baked batch. So, the conclusion was when preparing to have a stash of pretzels in the freezer, boil them before freezing them so you just have to pop them in the oven (although, unfortunately, I think you have to defrost them first).

Regardless, we enjoyed both with a spicy, whole grain mustard. Mmmmm!